Mother Russia
NEED TO KNOW
Mother Russia
RUSSIA
For Russia to remain a great power in the world, the world needs more Russian babies.
At least that’s Russian President Vladimir Putin’s thinking. At numerous recent events, Putin has lauded Russian women and, specifically, Russian mothers.
“Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven or eight children, and maybe even more,” he said earlier this year at a Kremlin event, according to the Washington Post. “We should preserve and revive these wonderful traditions.”
Part of this push reflects Putin’s stance in today’s cultural conflicts. As a conservative, he decries feminism and efforts to include LGBTQ people in mainstream Russian society. Many of his supporters share his views.
Russian Orthodox Church leaders, for example, agree with a Putin-backed proposal to ban propaganda that espouses so-called “child-free” ideologies that encourage women to reconsider whether they want to have children, Radio Free Europe wrote.
“Child-free is an ideology … that claims children are not obligatory in life and, more generally, even fosters hatred toward children,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, a church official, according to Russian news outlet TASS. “Such child-hating, people-hating ideologies – particularly child-free – must be banned and equated with extremism since they are destroying our future, our children.”
Plenty of Russians disagree with Putin, too, of course. Plenty have criticized Putin’s policies to curtail women’s access to reproductive care, for example, the Associated Press reported.
Russian women aren’t silent about Putin’s regime, either. They are more critical of the Russian invasion of Ukraine than men and have been central to organizing protests against the war and his repressive policies, the Center for European Policy Analysis wrote.
But there’s a practical side to Putin’s policies.
Russia’s population is on track to fall from between 25 to 50 percent by 2100, down to as low as 74 million people compared with the population of 146 million today, according to United Nations figures cited by the Atlantic Council. That decline would come at the same time that the rest of the world’s population will fall by 20 percent. Those who remain, furthermore, will likely be older, less educated and less likely to be ethnic Russians.
Russia can’t be a great power if its population keeps dropping and underdevelopment, corruption, and sanctions hold back its economy, the American Enterprise Institute noted.
Meanwhile, Western intelligence recently estimated that the Russian army has suffered more than 600,000 casualties since invading Ukraine more than two years ago, with tens of thousands killed.
Many of those, analysts say, were fathers or young men who will never have Russian children now.
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Fighting Against Fighting
AUSTRALIA
Protests against an international military conference continued in Melbourne for the third day Friday, following previous clashes between thousands of protesters and police during anti-war demonstrations in Australia’s second-largest city, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
On Wednesday, thousands of demonstrators marched in Melbourne in opposition to the biennial Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition.
The three-day event attracts hundreds of weapons companies from around the globe and serves as a trade expo for defense companies.
The anti-war marches sparked over the government’s stance in the months-long conflict in the Gaza Strip and the use of weapons on display at the expo – including in Gaza, the Guardian noted.
Anti-war groups and pro-Palestinian demonstrators participated in the demonstrators, carrying signs calling for an end to the Gaza war. Violence also broke out between protesters and police, injuring more than 50 demonstrators and around 27 officers.
Dozens were arrested, with authorities and expo attendees criticizing protesters for behaving
“in a disgraceful way.” State officials accused some protesters of carrying rocks, bottles and “balloons filled with urine.”
Even so, some demonstrators and “legal observers” monitoring the protests accused authorities of using excessive force during the melee. Police officials said officers showed “restraint” in the face of violent protestors and that non-lethal weapons used were “appropriately deployed.”
Despite the clashes and heavier police presence on Thursday, protesters continued their marches in other parts of the city.
Meanwhile, the anti-war marches and the defense expo come as Australia announced plans to strip the military awards from a group of war veterans accused of war crimes in Afghanistan, Reuters wrote.
The decision followed the findings of the Brereton Report, a four-year inquiry led by Maj. Gen. Paul Brereton, which found evidence suggesting the unlawful killing of 39 people involving 25 Australian Defence Force members during the war in Afghanistan. The inquiry uncovered a culture where junior recruits were allegedly forced to kill defenseless captives to “blood” them for combat.
Defense Minister Richard Marles called the allegations the most serious war crimes in Australia’s history, adding that the findings would remain “a matter of national shame.”
Mission Status Quo
JORDAN
Jordan’s Islamist opposition party won the most votes in the kingdom’s parliamentary elections this week but failed to secure a majority, a result that underscored voter frustration over economic woes and the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, Agence France-Presse reported.
Results showed that the Islamic Action Front (IAF), a political offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, won 31 of 138 seats in Tuesday’s legislative elections, more than tripling its previous count of 10 seats in the 2020 elections.
The result mark a historic win for the party, which rode a wave of public disillusionment over Israel’s actions in Gaza and positioned itself as a defender of Palestinian rights. The IAF’s stance particularly resonated with Jordanians of Palestinian origin, who make up about half of the country’s population.
Despite its success, the government will retain a considerable majority in the legislature after two parties affiliated with it secured around 70 seats combined, according to the New York Times. Independent lawmakers and those supporting smaller parties are also likely to back government policies.
Voter turnout stood at 32 percent, which political analysts said reflected deep public dissatisfaction with the policies of the Jordanian government, including its relationship with Israel.
Jordan is grappling with 21 percent unemployment, mounting public debt nearing $50 billion and a tourism sector hit by the war in the Palestinian enclave.
The kingdom signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, but there have been regular protests in the country calling for the dissolution of the agreement, especially since the Gaza war erupted.
King Abdullah II has denounced Israel’s actions in Gaza and warned against the transfer of Palestinians to Jordan, but his government’s balancing act with the West has not entirely satisfied the public.
Still, some observers suggested that the election’s outcome will serve as a balance that allows Islamists to have a voice in parliament without significantly altering Jordan’s political stability.
Neil Quilliam, a regional expert at Chatham House, referred to the vote as a “safety valve” that absorbs public anger over Gaza while maintaining the government’s grip on power.
Lording Over the Rings
FRANCE
Paris’ triumphant hosting of the Olympics this summer has turned into a political fight over the Games’ most well-known symbol, with the French capital’s mayor determined to keep the rings on the city’s most iconic landmark, the Eiffel Tower, for the next four years, Politico reported.
Paris’ Mayor Anne Hidalgo said she wants to keep the multicolor rings on the tower until the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles in four years. But opponents countered that it’s a political ploy ahead of elections in two years, when Hidalgo will face former minister of culture, Rachida Dati, for the city’s top job.
David Alphand, a city councilor and ally of Dati said the rings would serve to remind voters of the success of the city, which was one of about a half-dozen French towns, in hosting the Games.
Meanwhile, the descendants of the engineer who constructed the tower, Gustave Eiffel, are furious over the plan, saying they will take legal action to preserve the integrity of the original work. “(The rings don’t) respect the work of our ancestor,” Olivier Berthelot-Eiffel, a great-great-grandson of Gustave Eiffel, told CBS News.
The Eiffel Tower is often used for political messaging such as support for Ukraine or for commercial purposes, but anything adorning the landmark has always been temporary.
Now, Hidalgo maintains that the decision is up to the city but says she has backup from the International Olympic Committee, BBC News wrote.
Regardless, the rings, weighing 30 tons, are too heavy for the structure. The mayor wants them replaced with lighter versions.
DISCOVERIES
Here, Catch!
Throw a stick at a dog and they will run and fetch it. Cats, however, are a different story.
But a new study has found that a lot of felines actually do like playing fetch with their pet parents.
“We found that fetching was much more common in cats than we anticipated,” Mikel Delgado, the study’s lead author and a researcher at Purdue University, wrote in the Conversation. “Over 40 percent of cat owners had a cat that ‘sometimes, usually, or always’ fetched.”
Delgado and her team analyzed data from studies spanning between 2015 and 2023, including more than 8,000 cat owners and 74,000 dog owners.
Fetching is well-documented in dogs, with the behavior linked to their role as pursuit predators and hunting companions.
The new paper’s most surprising finding is the spontaneous participation of cats. Unlike pooches, many cats begin fetching without any training, often initiating the game by bringing an object to their human.
Delgado noted that the roots of fetching in cats may lie in their natural hunting instincts: Cats, are known as ambush predators, which involves carrying prey away after a successful hunt. This behavior could be part of what drives cats to fetch toys and other objects for their owners, even if they are not trained to do so.
The findings also showed that felines that are generally more active and playful, particularly indoor cats, are more likely to engage in this behavior. Certain breeds, such as Siamese, Burmese, Tonkinese and Bengals were more likely to fetch.
These breeds have origins in the Far East and may have retained genetic traits that encourage this playful behavior, according to Phys.org.
As for dogs, the study confirmed that nearly 78 percent of canines engage in fetching, especially breeds known for hunting or working closely with humans, such as Labradors, Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds.
In both species, fetching is more common in males, while older animals and those with health issues are less likely to participate.
The authors noted that the paper not only challenges the traditional view of cats as aloof and uninterested in human-directed play, but also reshapes our understanding of feline behavior.
“We hope that our study will encourage further exploration of how fetching is related to play, hunting and social interactions in both cats and dogs,” they wrote.